Large sausage casings are generally manufactured from materials such as regenerated cellulose, or regenerated cellulose having fibrous webs embedded therein, and are employed in the manufacture of large sausage products such as salami and bologna sausages, spiced meat loafs, cooked and smoked ham butts, and the like. Such products may range up to 61/2 inches in diameter and lengths may vary from 14 to 72 inches and longer. One way to make such products is to utilize cut lengths of casing having flat widths ranging in size from about 2 to about 15 inches. Some stuffing systems still utilize cut lengths of casing, but such systems do not lend themselves to continuous operation due to the relatively short length of the cut casing.
In recent years, systems for automatically stuffing meats and food emulsions into casings in a continuous fashion have been widely used in the art. Such systems are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,761 and in U.S. Pat. Nos. Re. 30,265 and Re. 30,390. These systems commonly employ shirred tubular cellulosic food casings as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,983,949 and 2,984,574 to Matecki.
The systems as disclosed in the above mentioned Reissue Patents have advanced considerably the art of preparing, on an automatic and continuous production basis, stuffed casing products which are substantially uniform in size, shape and quality. These systems use casing lengths of up to 250 feet to manufacture, in a continuous operation, stuffed products of a desired, predetermined length ranging from 14 to 72 inches each or longer. Specifically, these systems utilize shirred casing lengths, and include means to regulate the shape and conformation of the leading and trailing closed ends of the product, in relation to the predetermined recommended stuffed diameter for a given size of casing.
After stuffing, the product is cooked or cured according to conventional processes. Many of the large sausage-type products are thereafter sliced and packaged into units of predetermined weight and slice count for retail sale. The slicing devices employed in such packaging operations are pre-set to yield a specific weight-by-slice count for use in obtaining unit packages of equal weight.
In order to produce uniform slices for as much of the full length of the product as possible, it is desirable that the closed leading and trailing ends of the product be substantially flat. Several attempts have been made to provide stuffed casing products with flat ends. However, prior to the present invention, stuffed casing products as made from a continuous length of casing all had at least one, and usually two generally hemispherical or rounded ends. These rounded ends of the product are generally not suited to be used in producing uniform slices for the equal weight packages as sold in the retail trade. Consequently, the rounded ends are sliced off and product contained in these rounded ends is reworked. The term "rework" refers to product which is reprocessed for use in a subsequent batch of food emulsion.
In order to minimize the rework resulting from these rounded ends, many prior attempts have been made to flatten them by utilizing a variety of methods and apparatus. While such attempts have attained some degree of success, none has proved to be entirely satisfactory. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,638 discloses a method for producing large sausage products having one pre-flattened end. This method does reduce the sausage end rework by one-half, but substantial rework is still present in the non-flattened end. As a further example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,777,331 discloses a method and apparatus for producing encased sausage with two flat ends whereby the end pieces are inserted in a non-fully automatic fashion. The particular method and apparatus as disclosed in the '331 Patent is limited to the use of continuous lengths of non-shirred casing, and does not lend itself to efficient commercial operation.
Reducing the incidence of rounded ends and consequently reducing the amount of rework can be accomplished by increasing the length of the stuffed product. However, exceedingly long lengths of stuffed product are not practical for various reasons, including, for example, the limitations of the stuffing apparatus, the apparatus for handling and transporting the stuffed product, the cookers, and the slicing apparatus. Thus, there are upper limits to lengths of stuffed product which can be reasonably and economically processed so that the most practical way of reducing rework resulting from rounded ends, is to provide as flat an end as possible.
According to the present invention, it is now possible to produce stuffed casing products continuously and automatically, having the shape of a right circular cylinder, that is, a stuffed casing product having substantially flat leading and trailing closed ends.
In the present invention, there is provided an extender article in the form of connected annular flattening discs. The article is designed so that the discs can be introduced over the stuffing horn and into a casing during the stuffing operation to substantially flatten both ends of the stuffed casing product. Moreover, a plurality of the extender articles of the present invention can be incorporated into a package article and mounted to a stuffing horn of an automatic stuffing machine so that flat ended stuffed casing products can be produced from lengths of shirred casing continuously and automatically, without interruption, until the length of shirred casing is spent.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an extender module that is useful in producing stuffed casing products, and particularly large sausage products, with flat ends from shirred casings.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an extender module for use in the continuous and automatic production of flat ended sausage type products, which considerably reduces the need to rework or reprocess that portion of the sausage material contained in the rounded ends of similar size sausage type products made without the extender article.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an extender module that can be incorporated into a package article containing a plurality of extender modules, the package article in turn being mountable on the stuffing horn of a stuffing machine, for the continuous and automatic production of stuffed casing products having two substantially flat terminal ends.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an extender module which can be adapted for use in conjunction with either a shirred casing for a fully automatic, continuous stuffing operation, or with cut lengths of unshirred casing for a less than fully automatic stuffing operation, to produce stuffed product having substantially flat ends.
These, and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the specification.